What Killed Smalltalk Could Kill Ruby Too

Robert Martin

Object Mentor Inc

Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) has been a software professional since 1970 and is founder and president of Object Mentor Inc., in Gurnee, Illinois. Object Mentor, Inc., is an international firm of highly experienced software developers and managers who specialize in helping companies get their projects done. Object Mentor offers process improvement consulting, object-oriented software design consulting, training, and skill development services to major corporations worldwide.

Mr. Martin has published dozens of articles in various trade journals, and is a regular speaker at international conferences and trade shows.

Mr. Martin has authored and edited many books including:

Designing Object Oriented C++ Applications using the Booch Method

Patterns Langauages of Program Design 3

More C++ Gems

Extreme Programming in Practice

Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices.

UML for Java Programmers

Clean Code

A leader in the industry of software development, Mr. Martin served three years as the editor-in-chief of the C++ Report, and he served as the first chairman of the Agile Alliance.

Comments

Aaron Cohen

05/08/2009 6:42pm PDT

This keynote was the best presentation saw at the 3 Rails conferences I attended. The standing ovation Mr. Martin received was well-deserved. He has inspired me fully embrace test-first development after 10 years of resistance to it.

Starting next Monday when they arrive at the office, the entire dev team at my company will be required to wear blue bracelets with the text “What would Bob Martin do?” while working. (If the keynote had been given earlier, we’d have had a batch of bracelets FedEx’d to the conference for sale Thursday morning … another lost entrepreneurial opportunity, sigh.)

I too fervently hope that a video of this talk will be posted so I can turn on my buddies who couldn’t make the conference to it.

Brian Chamberlain

05/08/2009 11:47am PDT

I really hope a video of this talk will make it out on the net so I can watch it again. Awesome talk.

Andres Paglayan

05/07/2009 8:36pm PDT

I wish I had an uncle like this!
Lets go fix the world with Ruby!

Randal L. Schwartz

05/07/2009 4:24pm PDT

I was not able to attend the talk, but it’s too bad it’s based on a false premise, namely “Smalltalk was killed”. Smalltalk is still very alive and well. It earned JPMorgan Chase 2 billion dollars last quarter, and GemStone/S has an application that tracks 40% of the overseas shipping containers in Smalltalk, right now. Hardly dead. Just not talked about.

Nate Kidwell

05/07/2009 3:57pm PDT

Uncle Bob rocked the house

Donald French

05/07/2009 12:54am PDT

The best. Made the conference!

Marc Love

05/06/2009 11:13pm PDT

Simply brilliant. Uncle Bob is a superb public speaker.

Emmanuel Sambo

05/06/2009 7:01pm PDT

Very entertaining and relevant. Highlighted the importance of TDD

Martin Emde

05/06/2009 6:43pm PDT

Simply amazing keynote.

Andy Mayer

05/06/2009 6:19pm PDT

This keynote was freakin’ awesome. Hilarious and 1000% more entertaining than Tim Feriss.